Eventually back from Malta

On the 18th of April we were due to fly to Malta to look around the island with a view of getting married there next summer. The flight was cancelled due to the first incidence of the ash cloud disrupting flights; therefore we rebooked for Sunday 9^th May.

We were due to fly back from Malta on Sunday 16^th May at around 11pm. However, due to what the media are now saying was a non-existent ash cloud, the flight was cancelled.

We were lucky that the hotel we were staying in was very helpful and set us up with three more rooms for the night. After some good use of the hotel internet cafe we had managed to rebook our flights but this time for Luton rather than Leeds Bradford. We arranged to keep our current hire cars for another day and booked hire cars for the UK for the journey from Luton to Leeds.

We took the hire cars to Luqa airports in Malta, got a flight from Malta to Luton, took a bus to pick up our UK hire cars, drove from Luton to Leeds (my parents house), picked up my car and Molly, drove from Leeds to Marske to drop Fiona’s parents off then back home in Thornaby.

Although we have been hit by the ‘ash chaos’ we had a very successful trip. Fiona is part Maltese from her Dads side of the family. When thinking about our wedding we both agreed we did not really want a wedding in the UK. Malta seemed a great option. We both set about Googleing to find some information and ended up contacting the same person without either of us knowing. We viewed four potential venues and have already settled on the venue. We viewed a number of churches and we just have to finalise which one we like out of the final two.

To follow our wedding story check out www.jimandfi.co.uk where a few select pics of our pre-wedding trip will be uploaded soon.

Some great support…

Yesterday I was checking twitter and saw an update from @nicklansley (head of R&D at tesco.com). He has a blog called ‘techfortesco’ which, as  I am sure you can guess, is all about technology. I clicked on the link to have a read and the title was ‘Order your Tesco.com groceries through a Facebook app’. This instantly got me excited as I am the only person (that I know of) who has done anything like this which Nick knows about.

…the time is coming when our army of third-party developers can unleash their Tesco Grocery API powered applications on the world.

One of these developers is James Mills, an IT programmer who came along to our Tesco TJAM day back in August last year.

James has developed a Facebook application called ‘My Shopping Assistant’ which allows Facebook users to shop groceries with us.

Click here to read the full blog post

This is really exciting because it comes only a few days after Nick showed his support for the My Shopping Assistant facebook app by becoming a fan of the facebook app.

Things are really starting to get moving now with My Shopping Assistant. The facebook app, although it does not do much at the moment, is getting used quite frequently and is attracting quite a bit of interest.

Another app which we are working on is the Joggler app which Sam Whisker is helping develope. This is really exciting and we hope to have a version released very soon.

Further reading:

• My Shopping Assistant home page
• My Shopping assistant blog (work in progress)
• My Shopping Assistant Facebook app
• Video of My Shopping Assistant Joggler app in development

Joggler apstore update

The 02 Joggler is an absolutely awesome devise. The software that is on it might be a little behind and the hardware could probably do with a little improvement and some added features but as a first version it is an awesome idea and I will challenge anyone who disagrees.

The Joggler is a classic example of what Nick Lansley refers to as a fourth device it is designed to sit in the kitchen or in a communal place within the home. It allows easy access to an always on always connected device. O2 have tried their best to market it around their calendar service and push it as a devise that will keep the family organised allowing the entire family to know what each other is doing etc. The problem with this is that most people will already be using a calendar service which they are happy with and have fitted their life around how that works and nobody is going to switch to a service which is clunky and not as streamlined. The interface of the o2 calendar on the devise is good and easy to view but lets be honest, I am more than happy with Google Calendar and its going to take a lot and I mean a lot to move me away. I can sync my Google Calendar with Outlook on my laptop, Outlook on my desktop at home, Outlook on my desktop at work using Google Calendar Sync and I can use Goolge Sync and my iPhone Microsoft Exchange settings to sync my calendar with my mobile. Its easy and it works without me having to do anything. Fiona can even add things to my calendar without me knowing and I get alerts and I can see what I am doing on any devise I want.

So you can imagine my excitement when I found out that o2 will be releasing an update this week which will add an appstore of some sorts to the Joggler devise and…. they will be adding a Google Calendar app to the appstore!!!

This is great news… one because it means they are not going to force people to use their own calendar service and secondly because they are opening up the devise to developers to developer apps just like Apple have done with the iPhone.

OK so I knew that this was in the pipe line because I have been working with Sam Whisker for a while now to release an app for the Joggler for My Shopping Assistant. My Shopping Assistant is a set of applications which work on different devises (only a couple at the moment) which allow you to add, update and delete things from your Tesco.com basket. Some of you will already know I have been working with the Tesco.com API for a while now since my trip to London to the T-Jam event. I have written my own API which sits in-between the Tesco API and my own applications so that I can ‘add value’ to what they already offer. I will keep my main idea under wraps for now… you will hear more about it when we get the basics finished.

At the moment there is a beta facebook app out which you can access and test right now on facebook -  My Shopping Assistant facebook application. Although there are many features still to add you can do the basics of search for products and adding them to your Tesco.com basket! All from within facebook! Awesome right!

So the great news is that the Joggler will be getting an update this week and although you may not have heard much about it online (their online marketing and buzz for this has been poor) this is going to start something great and really kick start the Joggler as a devise.

Keep your eye out for the My Shopping Assistant Joggler app in the appstore really soon!

Still trying!

I really want to try and keep my blog going but if you had asked me the first half of last week what I was going to do with this blog I would have said that I was going to shut it down…

I really don’t want to, it’s not that I think I have anything interesting to say or that I think people will be interested in what I have to say… It’s more that I really want a blog!

I am not great with the English language when it comes to writing… My grammer is poor and my spelling is poor, probably a few reasons why it’s taken me years to try and kick start a blog. I have so many things I want to say about what I do for a living and also so much I would love to share about technology I love and play around with… I struggle to put my thoughts and findings into words.

If the past is anything to go by then I will probably not post for another couple of months now and when I do post it will be about how I have not posted for a while and how I really want to blog blarr blarr blarr!

Let’s see what happens!

So that did not work then!

Last year I started my blog up on the back of my website and closed everything else similar to blogging sites and services. The idea was to have one main area where I would post everything and on a regular basis… As you can see this is the first blog in a long time…

Two things to note. Firstly I am now engaged. Secondly I am writing this post in bed on my iPhone using the wordpress app. Awesome!

I will try to find the time to redesign the blog to fit in with the rest of the ‘jgm’ look and feel and I am going to try and blog more about things I am doing and what I find interesting.

I am working on a sites called My Shopping Assistant and I am going to try work some late nights to get that finished by the end of Feb. I will blog about that more closer to the time.

I have also just got a Joggler which is awesome. I think I will do a post on that soon…

Hope everyone is well. I am looking for some freelance work at the moment so stay in contact and let me know if you have any leads.

SuperMondays brings you SuperStartup

I am happy to share with you another great event put on by SuperMondays.

We are very happy to announce that David Cohen (CEO of TechStars) and Kevin Mann (Take Publishing) will be running an innovation seminar especially for the startup community!

David is a successful entrepreneur in his own right, helping to found several software and web technology companies which were subsequently sold. David is now the Executive Director of TechStars an acceleration programme based in Boulder, Colorado and Boston, Massachusetts and has helped 38 startup companies setup bringing capital, connections and real-world experience to provide a unique opportunity for early stage start-ups.

Kevin Mann at Take Comics was one of those startups.  Take Comics was the first (and to date only) overseas team to be accepted on the TechStars programme – and is based in Teesside!!  Kevin will help provide insight into what it is like to be on an acceleration programme and what he has got out of it.

Finally, we will be running a competition at the event where two lucky people will win tickets to the Le Web conference on 8th & 9th of December in Paris! You can find more here: http://www.leweb.net

Date & Time: Friday 20^th November @ 15:00 to 18:00

Venue: To be announced

Registration: http://superstartup.eventbright.com

More details on the event is here: http://www.supermondays.org/2009/11/07/superstartup-supertelly/

SuperChristmas 2009

SuperMondays, in partnership with Thursday Fizz, Adesign Association, Refresh Teeside and VBUG are proud to announce:SuperChristmas is the Christmas party that brings our organisations together to round off an excellent year and to set the scene for 2010. The party will start at 7:00pm on Thursday 17th December 2009 at Hoults Yard.

Click here to buy your tickets now!

The ticket price includes a light dinner, ceilidh dancing, and as much free beer/wine/soft drinks as the budget will allow…all served in a farm house theme decked out with bales of hay!

Everybody is welcome, so please do invite your friends … there will be no presentations on the night so leave your laptops, notebooks and netbooks at home!

Looking forward to seeing you there!

North East Networking, where is it going?

As many of you reading this blog will know, I founded Refresh Teesside and earlier this year we had our first event. The idea behind Refresh Teesside was to provide a local event for the developers and designers who run most of their business in the region and give them a vehicle to get together and chat.

I went to Teesside University and was lucky enough to get a job in the industry as soon as I graduated. I am originally from Leeds; However I have grown to be very passionate about the digital industry in the North East. There are many networking events in the region. Adam, who I work with at Koodoo Creative , attends many of these including BNI, NECC, Network North and Entrepreneurs Forum. These business networking events are great for him to generate leads and network with other businesses. He enjoys this and enjoys handing out business cards and talking business. However, I am much more interested in getting together with other people who do what I do. What I mean by this is I am not that interested in what clients other businesses have, I am not interested in generating leads because thats not my main job. I work as part of a reasonably small team, with only a couple of developers in our development team. Therefore, I dont get to chat and run ideas by other people who have similar knowledge and mindset to me. This is one of the reasons why I started Refresh Teesside.

Recently I have noticed there are quite a few networking events and many individuals and businesses who are trying to get people together and advertise the talent in our region. Many of these events take place in Newcastle which is another reason why I started Refresh Teesside which would be a local event. There are many events in the region and many have their own individual agendas and target audience. Super Mondays, run by Ross Cooney, is a great event and is targeted at a specific audience. Thursday Fizz is again another event which seems to target creatives in general; However this event has been setup very well and has been well marketed. Its a successful event. Mark Easby is running a Twestival in Teesside this year after last years successful event in Newcastle. Robert Page has more recently setup NOCCI Middlesbrough which targets creatives in the region. I believe Refresh Teesside has its place as it has a unique agenda and target audience.

I am aware of the Digital City event First Wednesdays and Codeworks with the membership and events they run. I have this really frustrating feeling that there are quite a few people and organisations trying to promote the region and its talent, but some may have the wrong agenda themselves. By this I mean getting involved with setting up ‘another’ event for self promotion of some sort rather than trying to promote talent or the region.

I was recently made aware of a:design association which really interests me. I was invited to attend a focus group on Tuesday (25th Aug) which was very interesting. I really like the idea of having a not for profit organisation as an umbrella for all things in the region to make sure everyone stays on track. There were some really interesting points brought up at the focus group and I will be sure to stay in touch with the guys to make sure my thoughts are taken on board and also to offer my time to help out. I am going to see if we can run the next Refresh Teesside event in association with a:design so we show our support.

I cannot help but feel really frustrated that there are many many many people talking up the North East when it comes to digital media. Codeworks, Teesside University, Digital City and the government are all talking the talk about the talent in the Teesside region; however it really does seem to be all talk. I say its time for someone to stepup and group all the efforts and make sure they all stay on track. I would say running an event in assosiation with a:design would be a good start. You would have to prove the event in terms of how it will promote and how it is unique. I will be looking to do this with Refresh Teesside, lets see what happens!

tjam and whats next

Its been a while since I attended the TJam event at Microsoft London which was for developers to get insite into what customers want to help them shop with tesco.com. There is already a community preview API avaliable; however tesco are about to release at any time now the new Tesco.com Grocery API Beta Edition which is built on their new ‘martini’ platform. The new api will be much faster and will allow access to much more information including product nutrition and even information about which isl and how far down that ile the item can be found in the customers local tesco store!

I am trying to do some ground work for ‘My Shopping Assistant’ which will be something connected with the Tesco API but I have not decided exactly what yet. I have a couple of ideas; however have not set anything in stone as yet. I have some feedback from friends and family about what they would be looking for, and we will make use of one of the ideas so the time and effort saved for our weekly shop would be a reason to invest some time into the application. The idea is that there may be many applications (apps) which get built eventually so the website name My Shopping Assistant will be a home for them all. Then you will be able to access the differnent tools and utilities from this main site. I will not go into too much detail at this stage about what the website will do as the ‘TJammers’ are still waiting for the release of the new Tesco API.

The above video is taken from Nick Lansley’s Technology for Tesco blog.

Molly Update

Molly (our new puppy) has been with us for a couple of weeks now. Its been a very interesting couple of weeks with lack of sleep, plenty of cleaning up and lots of learning (us more than Molly)! We are now slowly getting into our routine and I belive Molly is slowly starting to fit in and accepting our place as her new home. She met Jack (Fionas parents dog) who is still coming to the idea of having a small dog running around and Pebble (my parents dog) who totally loves having someone to play with even if she does not quite understand she is double the size and strength of little Molly at the moment. We booked her into have her second injection last Friday (so we thought); however it turns out that she has not had her first injection yet (which we were told she has had) she has instead had a booster jab. So she has had her first injection now and we have to wait another week until she can have her second injection and then another week until we can take her out and about. We cannot wait as we feel this will really help with getting her trained and fitting into a routine comfotably. If you would like to see some more pictures then check out my flickr stream using the tag ‘molly’. (I have also just found out that if you add /show/ onto the end of any flicker link you can view those pictures in a nice flash gallery! Nice!).